If you haven’t noticed, Americans love debt. The average household has around $130,000 in total debt, including $50,000 in student loan debt, nearly $30,000 in auto loans, and $16,000 in credit card debt.
With an average credit card interest rate of 15%, that would be $2,400 in interest per year. With a student loan interest rate of 6.8%, that would be $3,500 in interest, ...

For millennia, blood-letting was the standard of care for many diseases; today it is a joke, evoked only to mock our predecessors. But it is time to dismount our high horse and realize that there is at least one infection that we still primitively try to drain from the body, not from the bloodstream, but from the colon. This is our friend Clostridium difficile.
According to the CDC, there are about ...

Remarkable improvements in advanced life-saving therapies have brought chronic disease management to the forefront of American health care. Today, we see more patients that have complicated conditions. Often, these patients are admitted to the hospital with acute symptoms related to chronically managed conditions such as heart failure, lung diseases or cancer.
These patients can end up in the intensive care units and require critical care such as ventilators, dialysis and other ...

I did not need help. I could do it myself. I never asked, and anyone who worked with me quickly understood they did not need to offer.
This was my modus operandi. It was how I unconsciously organized my life, no more aware than riding a bike or tying my shoes. It happened in the background — utterly unknown to me for many, many years.
I could see “side effects” of this ...

Anyone who has ever tried to buy health insurance in the open marketplace knows how difficult and expensive it can be. I spent years working at jobs that did not provide health insurance, and I remember the annual feeling of dread when I received notice of the new premium increase. The only way I could keep the cost affordable was by continually raising the deductible until eventually, I was paying ...

When I started medical school over four and a half years ago (I took a research year), I knew that primary care was my passion. I actually had a dream beyond medicine to be a liaison of sorts between the ivory tower of medicine and the community. Once I stepped onto the scene of my medical school, things started to change. My goals stayed the same, but I started to ...

Camille’s dark glasses disguised a black eye she suffered falling from bed, cowering to take cover. Someone fired shots near her bungalow’s back window again, a routine rhythm of her slice of Chicago that she has heard for years now.
The 82 year old walks with a cane but carries a brick in her purse. She’s not afraid to use it on a badly behaving neighbor.
Most would think she has more ...

Many physicians don’t want to think too hard about investing. There are a lot more fun things to do in life than worry about the minutiae of index funds.
One of the best investments for beginner investors are target-date funds. It’s a great way to get started with investing, while you learn more about the principles of asset allocation.
But there are literally hundreds of target-date funds available. How do you pick ...

A patient with chronic pain and a physician walk into an exam room. This could be the set-up for a punchline, but in our current medical climate, it's more often the first step in an elaborate dance that leaves both parties feeling frustrated, belittled, and ignored. Often, this is a first-time appointment rather than an established therapeutic relationship.
From the patient's perspective, here's what happens:
They've been putting off this visit for ...